By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Abidjan, Côte d’ Ivoire, on Wednesday evening for a two-day State Visit which will see the signing of bilateral agreements between the two countries.
Upon arrival at the Félix Houphouët Boigny International Airport in Abidjan, Ramaphosa was welcomed by his Ivorian counterpart, President Alassane Ouattara at a welcome ceremony and then proceeded to the presidential pavilion for a meeting.
The visit to Côte d’Ivoire follows a successful State Visit to the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 30 November 2021, which was marked by the 10th Session of the Bi-National Commission (BNC) between Nigeria and South Africa.
“Ramaphosa’s State Visit to Cote d’Ivoire is historic and significant in that it will be the first State Visit between the two countries since the establishment of diplomatic relations in the early 1990s,” the Presidency said in a statement.
The visit comes at a time when the two countries are consolidating a list of strategic areas of cooperation across various economic and social sectors.
Ramaphosa and Ouattara are expected to preside over official talks before the signing of memoranda of understanding and agreement on political consultation, defence cooperation, agriculture, youth development, information and communication technologies, energy and mines, petroleum and energy and employment.
Ramaphosa is expected to be presented with honorary citizenship of the Autonomous District of Abidjan. Ouattara will bestow on Ramaphosa Côte d’Ivoire’s distinguished Order of the Dignity of the Grand Cross.
On Friday,Ramaphosa will undertake a tour of the Autonomous Port of Abidjan before addressing the Côte d’Ivoire-South Africa Business Forum.
To conclude the state visit in Cote d’Ivoire, the two Heads of State and MTN Group Chief Executive Mr Ralph Mupita will symbolically lay the foundation stone for the new headquarters of MTN in Côte d’Ivoire.
Meanwhile Ramaphosa described his state visit to the Federal Republic of Nigeria which concluded on Wednesday following bilateral discussions between the two economic giants on the continent.
We’ve had a really excellent and successful visit to Nigeria, we’ve had extensive discussions with President [Mohammadu] Buhari on a one on one basis and reached a lot of areas of understanding and mutual agreement.
“Our Ministers have done a superb job in terms of negotiating the many agreements, memoranda of understanding, some of the agreements are going to be finalised once we get home and we get a cabinet minute,” the President said.
Altogether, the two countries have 32 agreements while three more have been added to the portfolio. He said implementation is going to be closely monitored by both Heads of State.
“We will particularly look at the various outcomes of the meetings that took place. We are particularly pleased that Nigeria demonstrated its commitment in-terms of receiving us even in the wake of Omicron. They were quite determined for this visit to take place even on a scaled down basis but they did not want to dilute the main purpose of the visit,” he said.
“The impact of this state visit has also warmly and wonderfully impressed a number of officials in government as well as a number of Nigerians, they know that we have built solid foundations to be able to address a number of problems that will always arise,” he said.
The President said that South Africa and Nigeria “are two big economies on the continent and there will always be challenges and problems at a people-to-people and business-to-business level, so with this visit we built a solid foundation to be able to address all the challenges that have come our way.”
He expressed his gratitude to Nigeria for taking the delegation in even with the danger of the Omicron variant.
Ramaphosa further used the opportunity to urge people to vaccinate, saying that “vaccination against this new variant is the most important weapon that we have”.